Trapped In a Crystal Ball
by RavenWolf3
Summary: Sarah struggles to remember the Labyrinth, and distinguish it from something even more horrible. Jareth does his best to help her. JS, rape, hc. You've been warned.
1. Breaking the Dream

Sarah bound her hands in tape and went to it with a passion. The punching bag rocked back and forth, occasionally interrupting her rhythm, but more often than not, she kept the punches and their force in check.  
  
She grunted softly with each blow. Around her, the other students were set up doing similar exercises, practicing punches, blocks, and kicks. Master King walked among the rows of students, stopping every so often to give criticism or praise. When he came by, Sarah was careful to mind her technique.  
  
She passed, and Master King continued his circuit in silence. She smiled slightly. She'd been coming to this class for almost two years now, and she was pleased that her technique was finally beginning to come up to par.  
  
This twice-weekly ritual had begun out of a sense of paranoia. All her life, Sarah had been inclined to watch her back with every step. But at nineteen, when she'd gone off to college, the feeling that she was being stalked worsened. A friend suggested Master King to her, and she'd been here ever since.  
  
The feel of her own muscles beneath her skin gave her confidence. The feeling was still there, the feeling that someone was always watching her, but at least now she was prepared to kick their butt if they ever confronted her.  
  
Master King wrapped up the session with a brief period of meditation and reflection, and then Sarah went to the bathroom to change back into street clothes. Her ghee felt far too formal for ordinary life.  
  
She walked to her car and drove home—the dorms—and promptly fell asleep. She didn't even notice the light left on by her studying roommate.  
  
***  
  
Sarah started to run across campus as she realized that she was already late for her Psych class. Halfway there, however, she dropped her two textbooks. "Damn it!" she cried. To top it off, the skies were rumbling ominously, and she hadn't seen the sun since yesterday. Rain was imminent, and it would be just her luck to be caught in it.  
  
She knelt to grab her books and dashed under cover just as the downpour began. "Shit," she cursed. She looked at her watch. 1:34. She was officially late.  
  
As she looked out at the falling raindrops, she considered not going at all. She checked her watch again, and decided. Instead of class, she headed for the school library.  
  
The first time she'd seen the awesome building from the inside, she'd had to blink to be sure it was real. The towering architecture was nothing compared to the rows and rows of books. Only a handful of students was scattered around the tables when Sarah arrived today, and she was grateful for the peace.  
  
Dropping her satchel on a vacated table, she slumped into a chair. Her hand immediately reached for her small novel, which she usually kept in her bag. When questing fingers found nothing, she sighed in frustration. She must have left it back in her room when she left that morning.  
  
Deciding to be optimistic, she reached for one of the abandoned books on the table. The previous occupant had left it behind, and Sarah was too lazy to get up to get her own book. She cracked it open, but not before raising an eyebrow at the title. "Tabula Rasa: Spells of Remembering and Forgetting". Spells, huh? She supposed the book would be full of satanic rituals meant to hex other people's memories.  
  
But the introduction adamantly disproved her notion. The author stated, in no uncertain terms, that Wicca and witchcraft was most certainly not of the devil, nor related to Christianity in any way. In fact, it was a religion of the earth, and the author claimed that the spells within were only meant to aid certain natural processes already contained in a person.  
  
Intrigued, Sarah kept reading. She flipped to a chapter entitled 'Remembering Lost Dreams'. Something niggled at the back of her mind, but she ignored it and read on.  
  
"I see you found my book." A shadow fell into her light and obscured the pages. Sarah looked up.  
  
A blonde girl was standing there, one hand casually on her hip, smiling tolerantly. "What?" Sarah asked, blinking. What time was it? How long had she been reading?  
  
"My book. It looks like you're enjoying it. You a Witch yourself?" Again, Sarah blinked owlishly and shook her head.  
  
"Oh. Alright then. I was just going to grab it and go, but you look like you're enjoying it too much for me to take it from you. I'll just grab a copy from a friend or something. Good luck with those spells, by the way. I'm told they're particularly potent, but then, that's no surprise coming from that author."  
  
Sarah nodded dumbly. She had to do a mental check to make sure her mouth wasn't hanging open. The girl in front of her was not particularly beautiful, nor did she have any kind of remarkable features. She was slightly on the heavy side, though Sarah would call her voluptuous instead of fat. She wore a blue long-sleeved shirt and jeans. And yet, somehow, through all this normalcy, Sarah detected something otherworldly about this girl. Maybe it was the way she carried herself, maybe the way she spoke so knowledgeably, or maybe it was the fact that she herself was obviously a Witch. Sarah didn't know. But she finally managed to get a word in edgewise.  
  
"I-I'm Sarah." She smiled self-deprecatingly, and held out her hand. The other girl smiled and took it. She had a good, firm grip, and her hand was warm.  
  
"Name's Katie. Listen, if you ever want to learn anything serious about the craft, you ought to come to one of our groups. Daughters of the Earth, you know? We meet Wednesdays at the cafe on fourth street. Seven o' clock, every week. You should come some time."  
  
Sarah smiled, gulped, and nodded. Seeming to take this as an approval, Katie gave her one last smile and left, presumably to find herself another copy of the book.  
  
You should have given her yours, you dumbass, Sarah's internal voice piped up. It's hers, anyway, and you were just incredibly rude to possibly the first person to talk to you all day. No wonder you have such a crappy social life.  
  
Sarah blinked and looked up at the clock. It was 3:30. She'd been here for almost two hours! Fortunately, she didn't have any other classes until four, but she still packed up her stuff and headed for her next class. With the way her sense of time was turning out today, she'd better be on the safe side. Her attendance record was already suffering from her inattention. No need to make it worse.  
  
***  
  
Wednesday rolled around, and Sarah had completely forgotten about the freaky Wicca girl. She still had the book, though, and it was currently in residence on her bedside table. It was a fascinating read, and though she didn't intend on trying any of the things it suggested, the science of it was still amazing. She'd expected magick to be more about turning people into frogs, not paying homage to the cycle of life and the importance of the God and Goddess.  
  
She really, honestly hadn't intended to go to the meeting. But she happened to be taking a stroll along fourth street at six-thirty, and she decided to step in for a cup of coffee. Decaf, of course. Anyway, she spotted a few students milling around a table in the corner, and she remembered suddenly what Katie had told her. But she shook her head in denial. The last thing she needed was to get mixed up in some kind of cult. That would certainly be the end of her acting career, sad as it was.  
  
But then, she saw Katie. The girl walked in alone, and went up to the counter to order. Sarah watched her like a hawk over the rim of her coffee cup. She still could not pinpoint exactly what it was about the girl that made her shiver. She didn't even know if it was in pleasure or fear.  
  
Katie noticed her almost immediately. Sarah blushed slightly and tried to hide behind her coffee. It didn't work. Katie came over to her table and stood next to her.  
  
"So, you decided to come after all. I just know you'll enjoy yourself; we're having a discussion about dreams tonight. Here, come with me. We can sit together."  
  
Meekly, Sarah grabbed her stuff, took a sip of coffee for courage, and followed Katie to the circular table where about seven students were set up. All but two of them were female. The two guys were sitting together, but not at all uncomfortable in the primarily female group. One was a brunette, the other a blonde. Both wore their hair shoulder length long, and both were dressed primarily in black.  
  
Sarah sat uncomfortably, crossing and uncrossing her legs, and shifting her balance back and forth. Katie sat down in a chair next to her, and happily sipped her coffee.  
  
Another glance at the clock, and the meeting was about to begin. A brunette was the last to take her seat, and she was clearly the leader of the group, though she was not visibly different from anyone else.  
  
She took a folder from her bag, and began to go over a checklist. Most of the questions she asked were concerning ideas, special events, and some holiday called Beltane. Sarah tuned it out for the most part, wondering why in all hells she'd agreed to this.  
  
But then the meeting proper started, and things started to change. Rebeckah, the leader, asked them to all meditate for a brief period, which Sarah was already pretty adept at. And then, when they opened their eyes, she went around the circle and asked them to describe a dream that had been bothering them, or seemed significant. Again, Sarah tuned out all of the discussion. Until it was her turn.  
  
"Um, hi. I'm Sarah, and Katie here brought me. Um...I don't really know a dream I've had..." Sarah trailed off. She sounded dumb and childish to her own ears. She took a deep breath and tried to collect all her stray thoughts. And then she had a sudden sense of deja vu. It was a small thing, just a crystal ball that she'd remembered. But somehow, it was very, very important.  
  
"I had a dream about a crystal ball. And...there was a man holding it. He was like a magician or something, and he dressed so strangely. I remember he was playing with the crystal ball, changing it into different things. He wanted...he wanted to take my little brother away. He said he was the Goblin King. And..." Sarah bowed her head, the threads of the dream lost.  
  
Taking the hint, Rebeckah moved on to the next person. Sarah sat still through the rest of the meeting, too intrigued to be ashamed. What...where had that come from? Crystal ball...She was sure that if she hadn't said anything, the pictures would be gone from her head already, like dreams often do. But she had said something, and now she struggled to recollect the man in her dreams.  
  
He was blonde, she recalled. And he had the most striking eyes...She almost didn't want to think to closely about him. He seemed like a wisp of smoke, one that would dissipate at the slightest disturbance. At the same time, he radiated an aura of danger. Like a deadly snake. He smiled at her in her head, and bared fangs like a vampire.  
  
And then, like a soap bubble, he popped into nothing.  
  
***  
  
When Sarah woke the next morning, traces of a dream still lingered like fog around her head. He had been there again, haunting her dreams. It seemed that she couldn't get rid of him, now that she'd found him.  
  
Did she really want to? The feelings around him made her feel like he'd been a real person. A real, flesh-and-blood man, who'd played games with her and made her feelings into toys. More disturbing was that she was almost certain that it was partially her fault. He'd done something bad, but only because she asked him to. And if he'd played games, they were games she'd invited him to play.  
  
She went to the sink and washed her face. When she looked into the mirror, she saw a disheveled, disturbed girl. Something was wrong with her. Maybe she was getting sick. But that couldn't be; she almost never got sick. So maybe there was something else. She struggled dimly to remember what had happened the night before. All she remembered was coffee and...him.  
  
She shook her head and splashed more cold water on her face. Someone had probably slipped something in her coffee. Strange, but it would serve her right for going to a meeting full of perfect strangers. How could she have been so stupid?  
  
She went back to her bed and laid back down. After failing to count the number of bumps on her ceiling, she realized that maybe she hadn't gotten enough sleep.  
  
She rolled over, and, realizing that class was a lost cause today, went back to sleep.  
  
Her dreams tumbled through her head like dancers. Crystal balls and soap bubbles crowded around her head. A room full of staircases in all dimensions. A stinking, sucking bog that threatened to swallow her whole. And that man. Jareth. That was his name. His strange, mismatched eyes stared out at her from beneath styled blonde hair. He was saying something to her, with those eyes, but she couldn't read it. They looked like crystal balls to her.  
  
She woke, gasping. She quickly sat up in bed, and her hand went to her head. She traced the raised scar along the side of her skull. The one she'd gotten in an accident long ago. She didn't remember anything about it, but then, she'd had a concussion. Of course she didn't remember.  
  
There was a heavy, sticky substance between her legs. Blood. Her period, of course.  
  
But when she held her red coated fingers up, the blood was from something else. She gasped again, and felt like her heart would stop. Of course. She knew Jareth. She knew who he was.  
  
He was the man who'd raped her. 


	2. Bittersweet

Sarah sat uncomfortably through all her classes the next day. All she could think about was Jareth. She was almost certain that he had hurt her in some way. When she thought of him, she felt the tremendous ache of loss. The scar on her head throbbed.  
  
Truth be told, she could never be positive that he was the one who had raped her. All she knew was that at the age of fifteen, she'd been out walking late. The next thing she remembered was lying in a hospital bed with a bandage on her head and a sick, dirty feeling crawling all over her. No one had told her, but she'd known. Someone had violated her, taken her virginity and her dignity in the same swoop, ignoring the devastation it had cultivated in her.  
  
Sarah had let it go through most of her life so far. She didn't want to remember, so she chose to forget. Memory repression was her friend, and until now, she'd not wanted or cared to know the name of her attacker.  
  
But now she had both, against her best wishes. Jareth. It had to have been him. It would explain why her dreams—memories, of him were so distorted and vague and conflicted.  
  
She felt a bubbling anger. She'd been just a child back then. No defenses, no hope of fighting back. He'd taken advantage of her, raped her of her youth and her innocence. She couldn't even remember the incident, but she remembered the sick feeling she had when she'd realized what had happened to her.  
  
She hated him. She hated him for what he'd done to her.  
  
The pencil snapped in her hand, bringing her back to reality. The professor was giving a lecture up front, and everyone around her was taking avid notes. Damn. If I'm not careful, I'm going to fail this semester, she thought. But at least she could borrow some notes from a friend.  
  
The pencil had given her splinters. A crimson drop of blood ran down her hand to the center of her palm, and rested there. She wiped it away angrily with a tissue and then tried—and failed—to remove the splinters. The pain was an unwelcome reminder of what had been taken from her all those years ago, and only recently given back. And it was all as simple as a name. Jareth.  
  
She tried to ignore her knowledge as best she could, but it was not the same. Harder to push it down into a box and hide it when it had a human face now. A beautiful face, but beauty could be deceiving. It was all his fault, anyway, for making her feel this way.  
  
She cleaned up her hand and tried to focus on the lesson.  
  
***  
  
She was back in the library again. At least this time, she'd brought her own reading material. She'd expanded on the theme of Wicca and witchcraft, and was working on a hefty volume entitled 'Draw Down the Moon'. Halfway through chapter seven, Katie sat down across from her.  
  
"Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. Are you coming back to group?"  
  
Sarah shook her head, glad that she still wore her hair long. It fell in a protective curtain across her face. "I don't think so."  
  
"Why not? I thought you enjoyed it last time." Again, Sarah shook her head.  
  
"It's not about that. It's just..." She looked up. Her green eyes were striking in the late afternoon light. "Last time I kinda...well, I realized something about what happened when I was little. I'd just prefer not to revisit it too soon, if you don't mind."  
  
Katie pushed her blonde hair back from her face. "Let me guess. You were abused, and had forgotten about it until you remembered that dream."  
  
Sarah bit her lip and nodded. Katie looked at her with sad blue eyes. "You wouldn't be the first, and you won't be the last." She moved to the chair next to Sarah. "What you need to figure out is what you're going to do about it."  
  
"Do about it? I'm not going to do anything about it. Yeah, I was raped when I was fifteen. Yeah, I finally remember something about it. So what? I don't need to do anything about it!"  
  
Several heads turned their way as Sarah's voice rose in decibel level. A slight hint of color rose to her cheeks and she lowered her voice. "Look, you seem very nice, but this is my problem. I don't know if I really even want help on it. And I barely even know you."  
  
Katie leaned back. She seemed totally nonplussed by Sarah's violent reaction. "I completely understand. But you're wrong about one thing. You think this is just going to go away? Do you think that you're going to wake up one morning and say 'Okay, I've mourned enough, I'm over my lost innocence'? Because believe me, that will never happen. If you don't do something about this, you're going to feel guilty and used the rest of your life. And one woman to another, I don't want that to happen to you."  
  
Sarah sighed, and gave up all pretense of reading. "Alright, fine," she said in a meek, defeated voice. "So what? There's nothing I can do about it. Jareth's long gone. I'll never get my revenge, or my closure. I've lost."  
  
Katie leaned forward with a truly malicious grin and a light in her eyes. "That's where you're wrong. The game's not over yet. Come with me."  
  
***  
  
Half a year later, and she was finally ready. All the research, the searching, the gathering, everything had conspired to form this perfect moment.  
  
About two months ago, she'd realized that Jareth was more than just a person. He was King of the Goblins. She had been reading a book idly when she'd found it. It had been a simple text, merely explaining the various idiosyncrasies of the Fae, and the particular kings and queens. And then, under 'J', there he was.  
  
Sarah didn't find anything strange about the fact that her rapist was a mythical being. At that point, she was so far gone, she didn't even care. She'd seen too much in the recent months to be surprised. Revenge had clouded her vision, darkened all of her thoughts, until it was all she could think of. So what if he was a goblin king? Just made it easier for her to find him, and more importantly, summon and bind him.  
  
She'd run to Katie immediately with the good news. Her friend had begun her scheming the moment she'd heard. A demon? Or, more accurately, a member of the fae? The Fae were bound by rules, and it would just make it that much easier to summon Jareth. In fact, the only thing required for the summoning now was words.  
  
But...how to contain him? A King of the Fae was certainly no small thing. Once summoned, he could do any number of things, the least of which was escaping. The binding was the real trick.  
  
Sarah was eager, but she was not stupid. She wanted this thing to work. Deep inside, she still nursed the hurts that Jareth had engendered in her. She did not even realize that she was blaming the wrong person.  
  
But now, finally, it was all ready. It had all come together in this final moment, preparing her for the vengeance she'd subconsciously needed since she was a teenager. She was prepared for the spells that she had to perform. Katie had left the room only moments ago; Sarah wanted to be alone when she confronted her rapist.  
  
Katie let her be. A victim of rape herself, she understood. Katie had never been able to confront her own tormentor; it had been her father, and he was already dead. Sarah felt sick just thinking about what had happened to Katie, and angry for her. And that anger fed into her own situation, until she felt that by avenging herself, she would be avenging Katie, too.  
  
All the more reason to get this over with. Sarah sat in a circle of sea salt. Dragon's Blood incense burned in small trays to either side of her. She took a deep breath and began. "Goblin King, Goblin King, I call upon you in this fateful hour. No wish have I, no task to grant. Goblin King, Goblin King, come to me for I have need of you."  
  
Nothing happened. She waited several long seconds, hardly daring to breathe. Frustration threatened to bring Sarah to tears. She picked up a candle and threw it against the wall. Hot tears welled in her eyes. All that, all that planning and nothing! How could it have—  
  
And then there was a tapping at the window. A white owl sat outside on the window sill, and it was pecking away at the glass. Cautiously, Sarah went to the window to open it. This, too, was familiar. A white owl...  
  
Sarah, angry at her own fear, threw open the window. The owl flew in over her head, getting its feet tangled in her hair, but only briefly. After startling her, it swooped down to land in the circle of salt. But by the time it hit the ground, it was a he, and Jareth, King of the Goblins, stood before her.  
  
Sarah's mouth dropped open. She hadn't really, in her most secret thoughts, expected this to work. Or at the very least she wasn't prepared for it to do so.  
  
But now, he finally stood before her. He cheeks flushed with anger and she hefted her iron poker. A sword would have been more romantic, but it was much easier to get a fireplace poker than a genuine iron sword. And iron was really all she needed to do away with him, once and for all.  
  
To her surprise, Jareth said nothing. He was as beautiful as he'd ever been, with mismatched eyes and spastically styled hair. His elaborate, skin- tight costume brought a spark of recognition to her eyes. There was something more to this than she'd originally thought.  
  
Her eyes shined. "You know why I've called you here."  
  
Jareth nodded. His gaze was smoldering and piercing. "I do."  
  
She was getting angry now. "What do you mean, you do!? How can you say that with what you did to me!?! What you took from me!? You should be on your knees begging me to make your end merciful!"  
  
"You aren't going to kill me."  
  
Sarah held the poker before her aggressively. She narrowed her eyes in fury. "Oh, yes I am."  
  
Jareth smiled slowly and sadly. "No. You won't. You won't kill me because I didn't do anything you didn't already ask for. Remember, Sarah?"  
  
He held his hand up to her, and in it was a crystal ball. Sarah looked at it cautiously. She was forewarned and well-armed with the knowledge of the tricks the Fae liked to play. But her curiosity and Jareth's sad face caused her to trust him, no matter how logically stupid it seemed. Hesitating only slightly, she reached out and took the crystal ball.  
  
Her eyes were drawn by the dancing figures inside the ball. She recognized, with a shock, herself. And there were other things, too. An otherworldly labyrinth, filled with strange creatures and illogical riddles. Stairs and a baby and tiles that changed, hands that grabbed, things that were never as they appeared. She remembered! Ah, she remembered it all, now! Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus... And...  
  
She looked up slowly at Jareth. His gaze was filled with sympathy. Sarah dropped the crystal, and it shattered on the floor. "It wasn't you."  
  
Jareth held out a hand. "I would never hurt you, Sarah. You remember. Everything I do..."  
  
"...I do for you," she finished for him. It wasn't him. It hadn't been him. He never raped her. The only thing he took was her baby brother, and to be fair, she'd even asked him for it. Shock overcame her. All that rage. All the hatred she'd been channeling, all the furious loathing...It was all wrong. It was all stupid, contrived, wrong feelings. How could she have been so damn stupid?!  
  
She looked up. When had she fallen to the floor? And...Oh no! She'd disturbed the circle of salt. Jareth was free to leave, to do anything to her he wanted...  
  
There was a feather light touch on her shoulders. His hand felt like a butterfly. It was so delicate and gentle.  
  
Gingerly, he sat beside her. Emboldened by her reception of his touch, he began to stroke her back, her hair. She sobbed quietly, refusing to look up. Jareth had never been a threat to her. How could she have been so stupid?  
  
Some of her frustration metamorphosized into anger. But it was the weak kind of anger, the kind that bore only the fruit of frustration. She looked up at Jareth and sobbed hopelessly. "You were supposed to have been him! You were supposed to...I was going to kill you and get closure, and everything was going to be alright..." She heaved in a gasping breath of air. "It wasn't supposed to work like this. I...I needed you to be him," she admitted in a small, meek voice.  
  
Jareth stayed silent. But the soothing motion on her back continued, and she let it relax her. The fight had finally gone out of her, and she was done.  
  
When she finally fell asleep, Jareth lifted her carefully and placed her in her bed. He blew out the candles and extinguished the incense. They were just so many stinky powders now, no longer instruments in a spell of magick. As he covered her tenderly with a blanket, he heard her whisper something in her sleep. "...I need you..."  
  
He made sure she was firmly asleep before he kissed her on her brow. "I promise I won't leave you yet, my sweet Sarah." 


	3. Going Home

School was out. Summer didn't hold the same appeal for her that it had as a kid, but it still meant relief from constant school work and classes. Sarah was also a bit relieved, because summer meant that she would be going home to her family, to Toby and her parents. Home. Where she would be safe from everything, even herself.  
  
She thought back to the days after the summoning. It had been such a wild ride...  
  
*flashback*  
  
She woke up late the next morning. Fortunately, it was the weekend, and her roommate was gone on a weekend vacation. She was alone. Or so she thought.  
  
An owl was perched on her dresser. It watched her with wide, intelligent eyes. She stared back, but there was no winning a staring contest with an owl. Even though that's not what it really was.  
  
"Jareth?" she asked, experimentally. Strange as it was to have an owl in her room, what had happened last night was even stranger. She wasn't sure whether she wanted it to be a dream or not. But she had to know.  
  
The owl blinked. She took that to mean 'yes', and then realized how crafty Jareth had been to appear in this form. He couldn't answer any questions this way, and yelling at him would just make her feel stupid and mean, because he couldn't say anything back. And yet, by his presence, he still offered some vestige of comfort to her, all the while staying emotionally distanced himself.  
  
Proud of herself for understanding this, she stood and walked to the dresser. The owl rustled his feathers a bit, but did not spook and fly away, like any normal owl would. Sarah sniffed. If he was going to be a bird, she was going to treat him like one. She offered her arm out and said, "Step up." She remembered saying the same thing to a pet parrot she'd once had. She smiled smugly.  
  
Jareth screeched in outrage and flew around her to the center of the room, where he made the transformation back to human.  
  
"That was really rather rude. I don't believe I've ever spoken to so rudely in my entire life. And I have lived a very long time." Despite his complaints, there was a hint of good natured humor in his voice. Jareth may not have been treated so for a long time, but something told Sarah that he enjoyed being stood up to. She resolved to do it more often.  
  
"I thought you'd be long gone by now," she said, trying to start the conversation casually.  
  
Jareth looked at a point over her shoulder. "I decided I'd stay around for a little while. Just to...make sure you were okay." The last part he mumbled slightly, but Sarah could still make out the words. And the way he said them with such concern frightened her. The Jareth she remembered did not coddle people. He did not feel sorry for them, either. Weird. But then again, maybe she was remembering wrong. Again.  
  
Thinking about that gave her a headache, and she wasn't sure if it was from her scar or from the guilt. "Listen, I'm starving, and it's already ten in the morning. Would you like to go for some breakfast and coffee? My treat. Unless you can magickally make money appear, in which case you are so paying."  
  
Jareth smiled patronizingly and shook his head. "I'm almost certain that there's some rule or another prohibiting the counterfeiting of money and other Earthen artifacts."  
  
"Since when have you ever followed the rules?"  
  
Jareth winked.  
  
Sarah led them out of her dorm room, and down to the bus stop just on the north side of campus. She fished around in her pockets for some spare change, and then gave it to Jareth and used her bus pass to get on. She could tell that Jareth was really quite bewildered by the process of paying for the bus ride, but he covered it up well. Made her proud, really.  
  
They went to a small diner downtown. It was buzzing slightly with activity, and the atmosphere was really very relaxing. It helped Sarah to get away from the fact that she was having coffee and pancakes with the Goblin King. Of course, Jareth looked just as at home here as he did anywhere. Sarah felt more out of place than he did. And it was her world!  
  
Jareth stayed politely silent and distant the entire meal. Sarah started by asking some pertinent questions, like why he had stayed, and why she hadn't remembered the Labyrinth. He dodged the first question, and answered the second one cryptically, saying that that was the way it was. Sarah personally hated that answer, but she could tell that he'd withdrawn back into himself. He was not the owl, not physically, but he was damn close. She couldn't read anything from his facial expression.  
  
She tried not to think about the memories she had, the ones she'd been repressing until recently. Despite Jareth's non-role in them, they were still there. They refused to leave her alone. She still saw the dark alley, and felt rough hands on her body, tearing her shirt and ripping her panties down brutally. She tried not to picture her attacker's rough satisfaction as he had her. She tried not to remember the scrapes on her hands and face from being shoved into the pavement.  
  
Abruptly, she stood up. "I'll be right back, Jareth. I just...need to go to the bathroom."  
  
She knew what had brought the onslaught of images on. She'd been trying to repress the horror ever since she'd woken up. But the knowledge that her rapist was still out there made sure that she would never find peace.  
  
She washed her face and her hands thoroughly. She still felt dirty. Her skin felt like it was crawling and dancing on her bones, and she wished it would just crawl right off.  
  
She splashed her face again and looked at herself in the mirror. She squared her shoulders, and told herself that she would not fall victim to him again. She could be strong. She didn't have to feel his hands all over her, grabbing and pinching.  
  
With that in mind, she walked out to face Jareth again.  
  
When she got to their table, she sat down again, completely composed. "Thanks for staying," she said. Her cheeks colored slightly, but her cool green eyes met his without hesitation. Her posture was one of confidence. "I've been feeling so...out of control recently. It was really reassuring to wake up this morning and realize you hadn't left me. I don't remember you well, Jareth, but you've been so very kind to me...I feel I owe you an apology for what I put you through when I was fourteen. I was young and stupid, and...well, actually, young and stupid's all I've got. So. Sorry. And thanks for staying."  
  
The corners of Jareth's mouth turned up slightly, showing how versatile his facial expressions were. It wasn't quite a smirk, but it was close. "You're welcome, and accepted. Besides, the breaking of my Labyrinth might have been the most interesting thing to happen to me this century. No, wait," he said, and leaned in close. "The second most interesting. You'd have to be the first."  
  
Sarah laced her fingers behind her head. "Flattery will get you nowhere. And besides, I don't think you really know how much it means to me that you stayed last night. I was really pretty freaked out. I mean, you'd just turned my whole world upside down. For the second time, no less. A lesser...Fae would've run when brought against those accusations, but you stayed and comforted me. So thanks a lot."  
  
They ate a comfortable breakfast together, and then went their separate ways.  
  
*end flashback*  
  
She hadn't seen him since. Oh, she'd looked for him. In every tree and around every corner. She looked for a white owl in the sky, searched for his familiar face in every crowd. Her paranoia increased almost tenfold.  
  
Though she never spotted him, she was certain he was there, somewhere, watching her. She felt his presence everywhere, and it comforted her to know that he was watching over her. She knew that to anyone else, it would seem creepy and weird. So, she didn't tell anyone. He was her little secret.  
  
But now that she was returning home, she was worried. What if he decided that she no longer needed him? Would he leave her forever?  
  
Her heart ached as she stepped onto the bus. She'd packed everything she would need into two duffel bags. The bus was crowded and smelly. She felt a prickling on the back of her neck as she made her way toward the back. She tried not to meet the eyes of the other passengers, all of whom watched her curiously as she walked past.  
  
She sat down and closed her eyes. She felt suddenly claustrophobic, and cranked the window down. There was a dirty-looking old man sitting in the row behind her, and she felt his eyes like slimy slugs on her as she sat.  
  
She decided she'd rather sleep than continue to feel like a giant nerve ending. Fortunately, she'd brought her sleeping pills for just that reason.  
  
She carefully popped one in her mouth, took a swig of water from her water bottle, and swallowed.  
  
She turned her head to watch the landscape go by. She knew the pill wouldn't physically take effect for at least half an hour, but already she felt sleepy. The hazy light from the sun faded as she closed her eyes. Soon, she was lost completely to sleep.  
  
***  
  
It was nighttime when she got off the bus. She was so nervous, she waited until everyone else was off the bus before she stood to get her stuff. What had seemed like a good idea was now beginning to feel somewhat like a trap. Sure, her family was great. But she hadn't seen them in such a long time...What if everything had changed? What if they didn't have room for her anymore?  
  
She chewed her lip thoughtfully as she stepped down off the bus. She saw her father immediately, leaning against his car and waiting for her. The parking lot was pretty deserted by this point, and her spider-sense was going into overdrive. It felt dangerous, to go out there. Even with her father standing by.  
  
He saw her and his face broke into a smile. He'd aged since she'd last seen him; there was more white in his hair, and the crow's feet around his eyes had deepened. But he still had a ready smile, and he hugged her warmly in greeting.  
  
"Here, let me take those, Sarah. You must be exhausted! That's quite a long trip to take by bus."  
  
She nodded, just glad to be back among family.  
  
***  
  
Jareth watched her from the safety of his own realm. The crystal ball in his hand shone with her smile. He looked away. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps she didn't need him anymore. Maybe he was just being desperate, holding on this long.  
  
"Sir?" The little goblin was showing admirable courage in approaching him, and in his mood, Jareth appreciated it. So he wasn't quite the tyrant he'd imagined. Well, a lot of things weren't turning out like he'd imagined. And it was better to be loved and feared, if you could have both, and why couldn't he? He was a good king, took care of his Labyrinth, lured victims toward its center to keep it happy. The goblins never suffered more than a misaimed kick from him, despite all their moaning and complaining. His life looked good from the outside. So why did he feel so hollow?  
  
"Yes?"  
  
The little goblin trembled a bit as he spoke, and fidgeted from leg to leg. Jareth suspected that his nervousness was just part of his nature, and really didn't have anything to do with Jareth himself. The scrawny beast's body certainly lent itself to fits of shivering.  
  
"Well, sir, you seem to have been spending a...a lot of t-time on the girl, and I j-just wanted to suggest that...t-that you..."  
  
Now Jareth was angry. Sure, the little goblin had pluck, but now he was questioning Jareth's judgment and feelings. That was just plain stupid, not brave. "And?" Jareth cocked an eyebrow with an expression of steel. For the goblin's sake, he hoped it didn't so much as mention Sarah again.  
  
Taking the hint, the little goblin scurried away, leaving Jareth to contemplate Sarah's pretty face and lovely form as she rode home with her father. She was smiling, and she looked so happy. Gone was the drive for vengeance that he'd seen on her face all those months ago. She was happy again, among family. Honestly, she'd never really needed his protection, such as it was. Or at least, she didn't anymore.  
  
She had when she was fifteen, and he was still too miffed at her to even bother checking in. He hadn't known what had happened to her, and it was all his own fault. He'd let her be raped, when he could have stopped it, just because he hadn't had the common sense to check in on her. His pride had cost her her innocence.  
  
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to fend off a growing headache. It would not do to think of such things. He'd promised her his protection, and he would keep that promise, no matter how much it hurt him. She was getting on with her life, and she had probably already forgotten about him.  
  
He shrugged off the pain that thought caused him. It was of no consequence. He would keep her safe, as he'd promised, no matter what. 


	4. Something Else

Sarah poked at her dinner with her fork. It had been a long time since she'd had a home-cooked meal, but she was too jittery to enjoy it. The moment she'd stepped in the house, she'd felt that something was wrong. She'd tried to ignore it, but it had been a powerful tingling in the back of her mind, and had gotten steadily worse as the evening progressed. She had no idea how she was going to be able to sleep that night.

Across the table, her stepmother gave her a saccharine-sweet smile. "Would you like more peas, dear?" Sarah gritted her teeth against the endearment. She'd done her best to get along with Karen, seeing as her father loved her and all, but she hated it when that woman took liberties like that. Calling her 'dear' and 'sweetheart' and 'darling'. Only mothers were supposed to do that, and it rubbed her wrong when Karen did it.

She smiled back and accepted the bowl of peas. She scooped more onto her plate and watched as her father stabbed his steak with especially vicious movements. He was staring at Karen like he was trying to bore a hole through her with just his eyes. She seemed oblivious, but it was almost as if she was forcefully and purposefully ignoring him. Toby watched all from a quiet, intelligent viewpoint at the end of the table.

Sarah shifted uncomfortably. Something weird was definitely going on here. And she didn't like it. Oh, everyone had been perfectly friendly, all right. And that's what was so creepy about it. It was almost as if they were afraid to fight, or disagree at all. And they seemed especially anxious. Worried, maybe. And not only that, they seemed desperate to hide it from her. Like they were scared of what would happen if she found out what was really going on.

Sighing, she pushed back from the table and excused herself. Her father looked disapprovingly at her uneaten food, but he didn't say anything. It was dead silent as she left the room.

Upstairs, she flopped down on her childhood bed and wondered what was wrong here. Toby might be a good source of information, she thought. Her brother was likely to be the only unbiased one in the whole family. She decided she talk to him privately tomorrow, after they went to the zoo. Her father and Karen had planned a trip to the zoo to celebrate her homecoming, but after dinner, she was worried that tomorrow would just be more of the same. She hoped that whatever was going on wouldn't hurt Toby.

The moon was full outside, and a light breeze ruffled her curtains. The window was open, but she didn't make a move to close it. Vividly she remembered Jareth appearing to her as an owl. It was foolish and childish, she knew, but she didn't want to accidentally lock him out. Not now, not when she missed him every day, every morning that she rolled over and realized what was missing.

Now she clutched Sir Lancelot to her chest. His fur smelled musty and old, but she didn't mind. He was a relic from her childhood, a time, it seemed, when things were simpler. She snuggled close to him and held him tight. The little teddy bear was a silent testament of support. "What do you think, Lancelot? Am I being stupid again? Imagining things that aren't even there?"

Lancelot's glass eyes stared sympathetically. Sarah felt a little foolish, but not that much. Hell, she was sitting here, leaving the window open just in case her Goblin King fancied a visit. She laughed. She must be insane! She thought, and got up to close the window. He wasn't coming back. She just had to face it. He'd come because she'd summoned him, and he'd stayed for a breakfast and then he'd gone. End of story. He was gone for good.

She slid the window down on its hinges, leaving a crack. For fresh air, she told herself. Yet the crack was big enough for an owl to slip through, and she knew it. She leaned her head against the cold glass and watched the moon revolve. The stars twinkled coldly.

She sighed. The sounds of her family moving about outside roused her from her torpor, and she began to change into her nightgown. Toby's bedroom was the one across from hers, and she could hear his door slam shut. She frowned. That wasn't quite right, but then again, it was in keeping with the rest of her visit so far. Down the hall, she heard the slam of her parents'—her dad and Karen's—door. Soon after, there was the dull thrum of the television going on in their room. Seems like the night's social activities were over.

She tried to sleep, but she was far too restless to settle in. She crept out of her bedroom, padding silently down the hall, Lancelot still clutched tightly in one hand. The carpet felt thick and secret beneath her feet, and she hazarded a glance at the bedroom door at the end of the hall. There was a bluish cast of light beneath the door, signaling the continued use of the television. She relaxed one fraction of an inch.

Sarah wasn't really looking for much when she went downstairs. Just a glass of water, maybe. Some hot chocolate. Tea. A grown-up book she hadn't read a million times to put her to sleep. Maybe she was looking for Jareth, in an odd, roundabout way.

What she found was broken glass. On the living room floor, between the couch and the television, there were the remnants of what appeared to be a water glass. It had shattered, and she could clearly see the light reflecting off large, jagged pieces. She frowned. Someone should have cleaned this up. Someone should've cared about the dangers of leaving such a mess in the middle of the floor, where anyone could step on it.

She went to the kitchen to retrieve the dustpan and a broom. And some gloves, to protect her hands. The broken glass looked wickedly sharp, and she would rather not take chances.

On the white linoleum tile, she noticed something else. There were bloody footprints leading to the back door. She put her hand to her mouth. Had Toby stepped in the glass and then gone outside...for what reason? And how had the glass broken on the carpet, anyway? It was too soft for anything to shatter from the impact of a fall.

Confusion mounted as she wiped up the bloody footprints. She threw the paper towel in the trash, but there was more blood than she'd thought. It took her two to get it all clean. She went into the living room and picked up the shards of glass, noting carefully the bloodstains on each. When she looked close, she could see the new blood in the carpet, as well as, oddly enough, some old blood. She wouldn't clean that up. She had to draw the line somewhere. She had to be sure there was evidence left for her mind to pick over once she'd gone to sleep. Bloodstains on the carpet. She put a hand to her forehead. Jesus, what a night it'd been!

She put the dustpan back in its rightful place, replaced the broom, and tossed out the glass. She moved by rote to pour herself a glass of water, and then she dragged herself back up to bed. She was too tired to investigate further, though part of her also cried out that she didn't want to ruin her perfect family with the answers to this riddle. Did she? She still wasn't sleepy; she was too tired and shell-shocked to sleep. She felt like she was on autopilot, and little aliens in her brain were controlling her every thought. The house felt surreal, like so much acid.

She closed the door to her room. She thought twice, and then turned to lock it. The lock had been removed. She smiled at herself, forgetting. This door had never had a lock. Her father had always insisted on it, especially in her teen years. She spent enough time in her room as it was, he said. No need for yet _another_ way to keep your parents out.

She tried to lie down and relax, but the unlocked door felt like an invitation to harm. So, she got up and tugged a bookcase across the floor, shedding books as she went to make it lighter. She dragged it in front of the door, and then replaced the fallen books to add weight.

She wiped her hands on her PJs and laid back down. The exertion had tired her physical body out, but her mind was still churning, going a thousand miles a minute. Had Toby hurt himself on purpose? Was he self-mutilating? He couldn't be. Especially not with his parents only a few rooms away, with only open doors in between. He could have been picking up broken glass outside, stepped on it, and then come inside and accidentally dropped the glass. But even for her fanciful mind, that was far too convoluted a story for her to believe. Maybe Karen had...

She'd heard stories. Terrible stories, about kids who were forced to stand on one foot and read from an encyclopedia for hours as a punishment. Or who had to sleep outside in a doghouse if they didn't do their homework. Did Karen do this as a punishment? Forcing Toby to stand on broken glass and then go outside to take out the trash seemed so brutal.

It couldn't be. She calmed her raging thoughts somewhat frantically. It was just that someone had dropped a glass on the floor, and Toby had accidentally stepped on the pieces and not noticed it. There was no proof they were even Toby's footprints. They looked too small to be her dad's, but that didn't mean they couldn't be. And Karen's feet were almost as big as Toby's. Though she did have that feminine shape to her feet, that didn't mean that the blood hadn't smeared when she walked.

Sarah rolled over, frustrated. There was no way she was going to solve this tonight, just thinking about it. And in the meantime, she was going to drive herself insane with puzzling over it. It was like a splinter in her brain, working its way deeper and deeper, teasing her.

Maybe this was Jareth's fault. His crystal ball. Maybe that was the glass on the floor, the reason that everything was so odd. Except that she half expected Jareth to be a dream as well. The details of his visit were still crystal clear in her mind, not blurred, like a dream. But that didn't mean it hadn't been. After all, she'd only seen him that once. Only had breakfast with him once, and then he was gone, like a puff of smoke. She wished he would visit her, at least to show her that he wasn't a dream.

She felt tears of frustration and exhaustion clouding her eyes. Sleep taunted her, just out of reach. And the thing with the broken glass was more maddening than a Rubix cube. She would never solve it, and she would never give up.

Suddenly, she sat bolt upright in bed. Lancelot! She'd forgotten Lancelot downstairs! Fear knifed through her. She tried to force her muscles to relax, telling herself that Lancelot was only a stuffed bear, and that she'd be fine on her own for one night. But she couldn't convince herself. She needed that little bear, and she needed him now.

She pushed the bookcase out of the way, realizing that it would have just been so much easier for her father to have installed a lock for her. She crept her way downstairs, not worrying so much now that she'd noticed that her parents' TV was off. They were probably asleep.

She searched with focus and drive for Lancelot. In the kitchen, she could hear the clock ticking. Suddenly, she was terrified to be alone down there. Anyone could have broken in, and they could creep up to her from behind and twist a rope around her neck, strangling her to death. Or they could just shoot her. There could be goblins down here, monsters that even fantasy writers had no name for. Paranoia had her deep in its clutches.

She found Lancelot quickly, and had to restrain her speed so that she didn't break into a run. _Jareth_, she thought. There was a fierce ache in her heart and she longed for the dubious safety of his protection.

She looked around the darkened hallway as she walked down to her room. There were pictures of herself and her family on the wall, but in the dark it was hard to make out more than gray shapes and forms.

Her steps sped up against her will as she felt fear clutch at her heart again. She schooled herself into slow movements, because she knew that the fear wouldn't truly get a grip on her until she started running. Then she would panic.

She realized that she was being childish and stupid. Who was afraid of the dark? Not the returning college student, home for a vacation with her family. No, not at all.

She slipped into her room and closed the door. Again, her hand went to the lock that wasn't there, and had never been.

Well, actually, that wasn't true. There had been a lock, she remembered. As occasionally happens, her two sets of memories seemed to contradict each other. One the one hand, she remembered vaguely as a child, locking herself in and her dad having to take the hinges off to get the door open. On the other hand, she had a slightly clearer memory of arguing with her father because she felt that it was ridiculous that she didn't have a lock on her door. She remembered, fondly now, how irritating it had been when Toby went through his phase of stealing stuff, and she'd had no way to stop him.

She cleared her head with a soft shake. The paradox was inconsequential. She'd probably misplaced a fact somewhere, like the human mind often does. It didn't mean anything strange. Her dad had probably taken the lock off when she'd started dating. Simple as that.

She sat down in front of her vanity and combed out her hair. The familiar motions gave her an almost religious comfort. This was something meaningful, that she could understand and relate to. She stared in the mirror, at the thin layer of dust that covered it. There were pictures stuck into the frame all around the edges. Pictures of Sarah and her family and friends. There was even one of her holding baby Toby in her arms as a young teenager.

Thinking back on those times led her to think of the Labyrinth, and then of Jareth. On impulse, she wrote Jareth's name three times on the dusty mirror. She looked at her dirty finger, and brushed the dust off on her nightshirt.

She felt almost angry that he didn't come. She didn't know why, but for some reason it had seemed like that gesture would have meaning to it. Magick, or something. But no. Perhaps she'd been reading too many books on the occult and the mystical, because really, it wasn't as if a name had any _true_ power...

Outside her window, a white owl ruffled its feathers. It hooted softly, and watched her with its big eyes.


End file.
